


You Are Never Coming Home.

by pandaspots



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Tumblr Prompt, awkward pacing sorry, rated for death mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 23:42:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandaspots/pseuds/pandaspots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi comes back from his first mission outside the walls but leaves a piece of him outside with the dead bodies of his friends. Erwin is not the best at comforting people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Never Coming Home.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for an anon prompt @ tumblr
> 
> I'm sorry for the awkward pacing, tense switches and maybe a little overemotional wording of things  
> if it's any consolation, I cried writing this.  
> Title from MCR's The Ghost Of You.  
> Do not recommend listening to it while reading this. How the hell did this fit that song when I was listening to Icelandic Viking Metal while writing will forever elude me.

You’d have thought that, living in the underground district in Sina would’ve desensitized you for mindless violence.

As Levi found out, turns out it didn’t. Not to this level of violence, in which you were outgunned and overpowered and took six of them to take out a single of those titans, and Levi is pretty sure the Underground District now sounds like a walk in the park.

It explains why Erwin and the others were so fearless down there. There is nothing underground thugs could throw at them that they haven’t seen a hundred times worse. No matter their ability levels, some of the best got caught by those mindless beasts and gobbled up just for the hell of it.

Just thinking about his comrades bodies bitten in half and torn apart and crushed, entrails on the ground, on the surrounding bushes,  _on him_ , it made him sick to his stomach. He was back inside Wall Maria, supposedly in safety, but he didn't feel safe. He still had fresh in his mind the memories of his colleagues,  _his friends_ , inside that blasted titan's mouth, its teeth crushing their spines when it bit, blood splattering on his face. He would've been next if it wasn't for Mike, who flew right by him and yanked his body out of the way.

He got up from his corner on the cot and headed to the cleaning supplies. A bottle of bleach and a few brooms greeted him, and he grabbed both, and a small rag, a bucket and some dusters, heading back.

He cleaned his room upside down. When he finished, everything smelled of bleach, but still nothing felt right. So he took the dirtied rag and his bloodied clothes outside and cleaned them. He washed, rinsed and rubbed until everything was white again. Still something felt off. So he took some leather cleaning product from the stash and another rag and got every single particle of rust, dust and blood off his harness, and when he was cleaning the cloth back to pristine white, it clicked. It wasn't his surroundings. It was him. He still felt the blood on him even though he had already bathed. He could still hear the screams.  _He was still dirty_.

Levi sighed, heading to his room, where the things he took from the cleaning closet were, still. He took the bleach and looked at the small tub in there. He opened the water faucet and dumped almost half of what was left in the bottle there,letting the water run up until the tub was halfway full. That should suffice, he thinks and undresses, and even though the water's cold, it feels better. He takes a small sponge from the shelf beside and soaks it, scrubbing his right arm raw, then the left, his legs, and he starts to cry because it hurts and it feels better but it's not making it go away.

It's not making the pain go away.

"Levi?"

He startles and looks to the side, and Erwin is there.

"I'm sorry, your door was open and you didn't reply. I thought you were sleeping. Is everything okay?"

He wants to strangle Erwin again. That would be one blood he wouldn't mind in his hands.

"What do you think?" His voice doesn't help; he sounds exactly like he feels, and it's a testimony to what he's been doing all day.

"I'm sorry, that was a shitty question. Spend a few years in the Scouting Legion and 'okay' turns into a subjective state of 'less fucked up'." He smiles and Levi is sure he's trying to be sympathetic here, but he still has the urge to make him drink pure bleach.

"What do you want,  _Squad Leader_?" Levi asks and his voice breaks again, because he's not 'okay'; he's not sure he'll ever be 'okay' again. 

He hears Erwin sighing and thinks the other is going away, but soon he hears the leather of his boots protesting to the bending and hears something being soaked in water, and feels Erwin's hands on his hair, followed by something wet, and Levi can't even voice his indignity and outrage because he's just too tired. And so he lets the other wash his hair, and with a detached horror he sees blood streaking down to the water. There was still blood in his hair. It's just a small amount, but it makes Levi cry again and he's past the point where he shouldn't show vulnerability to the man who had him beat up in an interrogation, but he curls up in a ball in the tub.

He's vaguely aware of Erwin hauling him off the bathtub and wrapping him in towels. It's like someone else is using his body when he gets dried up and dressed up. He's exhausted. He hasn't cried this much since his parents died, and apparently now he informed Erwin of that, because he's saying 'I'm sorry'.

"It's not your fault, they died of pox. They were old, and we were poor." He's not entirely sure why he's telling the other that.

"Doesn't make it any less sad." The other countered. "Must have been devastating."

"Watching people you love die before your eyes and you can't do shit to help? I'd think you'd be acquainted with that." Levi snarks back, and Erwin has the nerve to smile.

"I've been friends with that for so long I wonder sometimes if I'm still human because I don't feel it anymore." He states simply. Levi sits on his bed and looks up at the other and he half expects to see remorse, but all he sees is the blank expression of a tired soldier who's seen far too many friends die.

"I don't know why I expected you to comfort me." He mumbles.

"There's not much comforting from what you've seen. And it's going to happen again, and again, until either we win or they crush us." Levi feels the mattress sink beside him and a strong arm pulls him closer into an awkward hug, and somehow it leads to more crying, because this asshole is still here, and he's trying, and  _he's still here and he's alive._ Levi grips Erwin's shirt, and feels the other man shift so he can put both arms around Levi and Levi isn't bound to stop crying anytime soon, but he starts feeling less distressed. He's holding onto someone he went outside the walls with and both of them came back. Maybe this will never stop being sad, but he slowly realizes holding onto the dead wouldn't help; he had to cling onto the living, and if he had to do it literally to feel better, then so be it.

He's not sure when he fell asleep, but it's already dinner time, and his eyes are red and swollen, and his hands are sore from holding onto someone that's still there.

And it still hurts, but he feels okay.


End file.
